From September 1 to December 28, Elden Ring adds up what everyone plays

Three hundred thousand summons and four and a half million items. Those are the numbers hanging over Elden Ring for the month of September, and no single player is meant to reach them. They are running totals, pooled across everyone playing the game anywhere in the world. Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s 2022 open-world action RPG, and on September 2, 2026 Bandai Namco used a Steam announcement titled “ELDEN RING - Community Quests” to lay out a shared-target event that runs from September into December [1]. Four questlines, seventeen targets in all. As of September 3, 2026 the first one is under way.

Nobody clears these alone

Taking part is one sentence in the announcement: play Elden Ring on whichever platform you own, during the window of each questline [1][2]. No registration, no account linking, no purchase. Platform does not matter either, so a session on PC, PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo Switch 2 feeds the same running total.

What you cannot do is check your own contribution. The announcement says progress updates will appear in the official Elden Ring Discord server (discord.gg/eldenring), and that is the whole of it [1][2]. There is no mention of an in-game counter and no stated update frequency.

The timing sits on top of two earlier items. ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition reached Nintendo Switch 2 on August 28 [5], and the same day the Tarnished Pack went on sale on the other platforms. The pack carries two new starting classes, new armor and a way to customize the appearance of Torrent, the spectral horse, all usable in the base game and in the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion [3]. On Steam in the United States it costs $4.99 as of September 3, 2026 [4]. None of it is required to take part in the Community Quests.

Four targets for September, 25 days to go

The first questline is called Path of the Tarnished and runs September 1 to September 28. It carries four targets [1].

• Summon Sorcerer Rogier 300,000 times
• Obtain 2,000,000 Stonesword Keys
• Obtain 1,500,000 Cookbooks
• Obtain 1,000,000 Sacred Tears

Three of those count items picked up in the game; the fourth counts summons of one specific NPC. The names are reproduced here in English for a reason. The announcement was published in English on Steam and on Bandai Namco Europe’s site, and no localized version had appeared in the news list on the Japanese official site as of September 3 [6]. If you play in another language, what the game shows you may not match the wording above.

The dates have gaps of their own. The announcement gives only “Time Period: September 1 - September 28” and its equivalents, with no start or end time and no reference time zone [1]. The questline also opened before the notice did: Bandai Namco Europe carries a publication date of September 1, and the Steam post went up on September 2 at 14:10 UTC [1][2]. Anyone watching only Steam lost the first two days without knowing it. As of September 3, 25 days remain.

What October, November and December already ask for

The remaining three questlines are published in full, targets included [1].

Path of the Cardinal Sin runs October 1 to October 28: commit 50,000 Cardinal Sins, summon 3,000,000 White Phantoms, obtain 1,000,000 Festering Bloody Fingers and 3,000,000 Golden Seeds.

Path of the Elden Lord runs November 2 to November 28: summon Warrior Jar Alexander 50,000 times, obtain 3,000,000 Rune Arcs and 500,000 Legendary Armaments, and upgrade 100,000 Standard Spirit Ashes to +8. It is the only one of the four that starts on the second rather than the first, and the announcement does not say why.

Path of Shadows runs December 1 to December 28 and carries five targets instead of four: collect 1,000,000 Scadutree Fragments, reach the Abyssal Woods 15,000 times, drink from St. Trina’s Nectar 10,000 times, obtain 70,000 Larval Tears and 500,000 Revered Spirit Ashes. The first three names come from the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, and whether players without it can contribute to those targets is a question the announcement leaves open.

The questlines do not sit flush against each other. September 29 and 30, October 29 to 31, and November 29 and 30 have no active questline at all.

Four pieces of artwork, four badges

Each questline pays out twice: one piece of commemorative artwork and one Twitch chat badge [1].

Only the first artist is named. The Path of the Tarnished artwork is by Shimhaq, and the other three artworks are still listed as to be revealed. All four Twitch chat badges are by Carsondrewit, built around Sorcerer Rogier, the Festering Bloody Finger, Warrior Jar Alexander and St. Trina respectively [1].

How any of it reaches players is the part left blank. The announcement does not say where the artwork is published, whether claiming a Twitch badge requires linking an account, or what becomes of a month’s reward if its targets are missed.

One event sits outside the game entirely: an emote contest held inside the official Elden Ring Discord server. The announcement calls it separate from the in-game challenges and points to the server for the details [1][2].

Which leaves nothing to organize. Playing Elden Ring before September 28 is the entry, and the Discord server is where to look if you want to watch the counters move. What Bandai Namco has not addressed is what happens to a month’s artwork when its targets go unmet.

Sources

[1] Bandai Namco Entertainment. ELDEN RING - Community Quests. Steam, September 2, 2026.

[2] Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe. ELDEN RING - Community Quests. Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, September 1, 2026.

[3] Bandai Namco Entertainment. ELDEN RING - Tarnished Pack DLC is available now. Steam, August 28, 2026.

[4] Valve. ELDEN RING Tarnished Pack. Steam store, checked September 3, 2026.

[5] Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe. ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition. Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, checked September 3, 2026.

[6] FromSoftware. ELDEN RING official site, NEWS. Checked September 3, 2026.